All These Wasteful Hours
by hadaka
Summary: Sena didn't know when it had all gone so wrong, but he did know he'd give anything, anything at all, for just one more chance.


**Disclaimer:** Do. Not. Own.

**Warnings:** Relationships between men.

**Additionally:** This is a WIP, with emphasis on the progress. I'm not certain I like this chapter.

* * *

The shrine was small and shabby. There was no sign, and the guardian dogs were worn almost featureless. The purification bowl was empty and stained.

Sena didn't know where he was. He didn't care.

He had no idea of the time. His phone's battery had died much earlier. The rain had soaked him to the skin, and his shoes made wet, sloshing noises as he walked over the paved stones. When he lowered himself to the stone steps leading to the shut-up hall of the shrine proper, he could feel the weight of water pulling him down, his hair, his skin. His bones ached in a way they never had before, in a way that was unfamiliar and unsettling.

He could still smell the ashes, the plumes of dust that had fallen off of the bones as they were lifted. His hand hurt with the memory of holding the chopsticks.

What time was it? He had to catch a flight in the morning.

The paper in his jacket was damp—the ink had smeared. Yet, when Sena straightened it between his fingers, flattened it against the top of the highest step, the writing on it was still legible.

The ashes were waiting for him, Sena knew. He had made an appointment to pick them up on his way to the airport.

The attendants at the funeral parlor and crematorium had been shocked when he'd been the only one to present himself for the gathering of the bones. They'd inquired, with excruciating politeness, if there would be anyone else coming, and hadn't seemed to quite know what to say when he'd said no. The director himself had asked, very discreetly, if Kobayakawa-san would like some help. Sena had said no.

He'd picked the bones out of the ashes himself, painstakingly moving them one by one from tray to urn, in the correct order. He'd spent hours sifting the ashes, looking for every charred piece he could find, working in silence and without break. The attendants had left him to it at his request, with the only help he wanted being an expert whose one function was to assist in identifying the type of bone. Sena hadn't allowed anyone else to touch the remains for as long as he was there. The attendants had lined up to bow him out when he left, some of them with tears in their eyes.

His bags were packed and tagged, ready to be taken to the airport. His carry-on was waiting, and the specially sealed box he would use for the urn.

He was so tired.

Mamori wanted him to come and stay with her. She'd cried over the phone, telling him how sorry she was, telling him, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know this must be so much worse for you, you loved him so much..._

He'd sat there on that hotel bed, wearing his brand new black suit and with the phone to his ear and Mamori's tears filling his head, and he hadn't known how to tell her, _I left him two months ago._

Sena didn't know how to sum up thirteen years of _you loved him so much_ into only six cursory words.

The shrine flashed black and white—somewhere in the distance, thunder shattered the still, wet air. _It'll rain again,_ Sena thought. _I should find a taxi._

He picked the paper up off the step, to fold it and put it in his shirt, where maybe it wouldn't go completely to pieces, and his eyes were caught by the columns of sharp, jagged letters.

_Fuck the family grave. I don't want to be there. If you can, keep me somewhere, and then have them bury me with you when the day should come. If you don't want that, get rid of me however you want. It won't matter then._

Sena's hand, the one with the paper in it, clenched without his meaning to. The wet paper collapsed between his fingers.

It hurt. Oh, it hurt.

"I can't do this," someone whispered—him, Sena, he was talking, talking through his teeth and the pain in his chest, the shaking hand against his face. "I can't. I _can't_..."

A wind filled the courtyard, whipped the clammy air into something sharp and cool, the taste of rain before it fell. Sena closed his eyes.

He was so, so tired.

Another crack of lightening, one that burned his vision white; a rumbling thunderpeal that shook the stones beneath him.

The last thing he remembered was leaving the funeral parlor. He'd meant to find the nearest terminal, get on a train, go back to the hotel. He had to get the rest of his luggage, rent a car for the trip back to the crematorium and then to the airport, and then...

_It won't matter then._

Where could he put that thing? In his living room, next to the flatscreen? In the kitchen, where he could look at it while he tried to eat? In his closet, along with all of the other half-forgotten memories and mementos of the past? In some corner of his bedroom, so that he could sleep every night next to the remains of a man who had once shared the bed with him? Could he put it into storage somewhere? Rent a safety deposit box?

Or perhaps he could take it out to the river, the river of their youth, or the seaside, or to a football field somewhere, or maybe to the gutter outside this very shrine, and he could shatter that wretched urn and let the wind scatter the ashes and leave the shards right there in the street for someone else to pick up and he could just never, never, never think about it again—

_It won't matter then._

His face felt hot—salt stung at his tongue. He was crying. He was crying, and the paper was tearing in his grip, and he couldn't breathe, because _He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, gone gone gone—_

_Sena._

Sena jerked upright, red eyes wide.

There was no one there. But he'd—he'd heard—or had he? The shrine was dark and quiet, nearly lightless at such a distance from the nearest streetlight. The sky overhead was black and ominous with storm clouds, and the air was sharp with the threat of rain. The courtyard was empty but for the purification bowl and the one tassel-hung tree with its lashing branches and the faceless guardian dogs, and Sena was trying to remember where exactly he was, it had to be somewhere near the funeral parlor—

_Sena._

"Who is it?" cried Sena, and his voice was unnervingly loud. Someone was there. Someone was calling his name, and the thought (the passing, quailing thought) that he could recognize the voice made his skin cold with hope and terror. "Who is it?"

He stood. The shut-up hall behind him was silent. A wind howled down out of the sky, and leaves scratched in the corners.

_Sena._

No. "No," whispered Sena, talking to—to no one, to air. "No, you—you died—"

He'd lost his mind. He was hallucinating. He was drunk, he was asleep, this was all a nightmare, an awful, awful nightmare—

Where was he?

The wind came like the shrieking of ghosts, tearing at the branches of the tree, at Sena's hair and clothes. The air was filled with dead leaves and the first freezing chill of rain about to fall.

_Sena._

Sena had been the only one at the wake. He remembered the priest glancing at him as he sat, the only one in the room, while the sutra was chanted. He remembered standing in front of the incense urn and offering incense three times, alone. He remembered how he'd sat there all night, by himself, next to the closed casket, numb and almost insensible, coming back to himself only when it was morning and the priest and the director of the funeral parlor had come to check on him.

He'd been there when the body was pushed into the cremation chamber, and the only man he'd ever loved was reduced to slag.

_"You're dead,"_ screamed Sena, and now he was staggering down the steps, the letter, that last, weary letter, in his hand. _"You're dead, you're dead, don't you do this to me—you're dead—"_

The wind tore at him, but he noticed nothing, because he was finally going insane, he was losing his mind—this would be his punishment, this was the price he would pay for failing to save him, to hear his voice and lose him again and again and again, over and over until—until—

_"Please,"_ someone was shrieking, someone was screaming, _"please, don't leave me, don't leave me—"_

_Sena._

A jagged line of incandescent white fell out of the sky, striking the single, bound tree in a flare of white sparks, and then Sena was lost in light.


End file.
